W eugene smith cause of death

W eugene smith photo essays
W. eugene smith death
W. eugene smith photos

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William Eugene Smith was born in 1918 in Wichita, Kansas. He took his first photographs at the age of 15 for two local newspapers. In 1936, Smith entered Notre Dame University in Wichita, where a special photographic scholarship was created for him. A year later, he left the university and went to New York City. After studying with Helene Sanders at the New York Institute of Photography, in 1937, he began working for News-Week (later Newsweek). He was fired for refusing to use medium-format cameras and joined the Black Star agency as a freelancer.

Smith worked as a war correspondent for Flying magazine (1943–44), and a year later for Life. He followed the island-hopping American offensive against Japan, and suffered severe injuries while simulating battle conditions for Parade, which required him to undergo surgery for the next two years.

Once recuperated, Smith worked for Life again between 1947 and 1955, before resigning in order to join Magnum Photos as an associate. In 1957, he became a full member of Magnum. Smith was fanatically dedicated to his mission as a phot

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Smith and wife Aileen, 1974, Consuelo Kanaga

William Eugene Smith (December 30, 1918 - October 15, 1978) was an American photojournalist. He has been described as "perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay." His major photo essays include World War II photographs, the visual stories of an American country doctor and a nurse midwife, the clinic of Albert Schweitzer in French Equatorial Africa, the city of Pittsburgh, and the pollution which damaged the health of the residents of Minamata in Japan. His 1948 series, Country Doctor, photographed for Life, is now recognized as "the first extended editorial photo story".

Life and early work

William Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kansas, on December 30, 1918, to William H. Smith and his wife Nettie (née Lee). Growing up, Smith had become fascinated by flying and aviation. When Smith was 13, he asked his mother for money to buy photographs

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W. Eugene Smith learned the hard way that photography could be too easy, a matter of making expert images of interesting subjects. He set himself to learn the truth – about himself as well as his subjects. In the process, he produced a series of photographic essays, for LIFE and other publications, whose passionate involvement set a standard for what photography can be. Gene Smith was a loner, a driving and driven man, who bucked the system of which he was a part. Some say he sacrificed his career, and himself, on an altar of self-destructive idealism. When he died at the age of 59 in 1978, he had $18 in the bank. But his name had become synonymous with integrity. His work was his memorial.

I’ve never made any picture, good or bad, without paying for it in emotional turmoil.

W. Eugene Smith

Many photographers today are working against the fashions and economics of modern publishing. The Fund was established in 1979 to seek out and encourage strong independent voices. In the first thirty years of competition, from many thousands of proposals, the Fund selected 303 finalists wh